SHE LIVES
US, 1973, 75 minutes, Colour.
Season Hubley, Desi Arnaz Jr Anthony Zerbe, Michael Margotta.
Directed by Stuart Hagman.
A love and death story. The heroine says that the film is not love story and real life. However, there are many similarities, except that the heroine rages against her fate. It is a story of sixties type students and young men and women. A couple, an odd couple, livigg together discover in their happiness that the heroine is to die. The hero decides that he must help her to live and goes to no end of searching for cures for the heroine. The story is trite enough on paper. However, Season Hubley and Desi Arnaz Jr are very effective in the central roles and make this material quite credible.
There is a lot of sensitivity and feeling in the film for soap opera. Season Hubley was to have greater success in the late seventies with the film Elvis and Hardcore. Desi Arnaz Junior has played similar sympathetic roles in Red Sky at Morning and Black Market Baby. He appeared in Robert Altman's A Wedding as the groom. The direction is by Stuart Hagmann who made the campus film The Strawberry Statement and the drugs film Believe in Me. She Lives is fine emotional drama for the television audience.
1. The basic appeal of the material: the love story, despite Pam’s disclaimer about her story not being love story? Love, serious illness, the prospect of death, hope? Audience identificlation, sympathy? quality of presentation of these themes?
2. The telemovie presentation for home audience, impact? Through the medium of television with its pauses, home distractions for the audience? A serious treatment of themes, emotional involvement?
3. The young couple of the sixties and seventies? Youth and the differences from the stability of the past? Parents and their severity? The inculcation of goals and the changes in goals? Study, scholarships, exams? Jobs and work? The picture of Los Angeles ind San Francisco? An authentic atmosphere?
4. The significance of the title, its hope, Andy saying and writing it at the end? The musical score, the continued use of the song and its illustration of the themes, its plaintive mood?
5. Season Hubley and Desi Arnaz and their sensitivity, sympathy? their embodying their roles, their natural interaction with each other? How persuasive in terms of themselves, their loving relationship, Pam’s illness, Andy's search for healing? His communicating this hope to her?
6. The portrait of Andy? his background, the episode with the death of the rats, his sensitivity, his clashes with his father and his father's rejection of him by letter? His advertisement, reading the replies in the toilet and his reaction,
his placing the notes in the records and meeting Pam?
7. The encounter with Pam, their talking, the film establishing their compatability, friendship, love? Discussion of problems? Their sharing, the house, the clash with Al? Andy's decision to be faithful to Pam, their anniversary?
8. The sculpture, the phone calls to Pam, the buying of the record? The possibilities for a happy future?
9. The sudden indications of Pam’s illness, the tests, her violent reaction? The doctor and his information, treatment of Andy? Her violent reaction in the house? Her treatment, depression? Pam as an energetic character, an attractive girl, faced with the prospect of dying? her fearful reaction?
10. Andy and his support, his love, energy, his willing her to be better? The sequence where he persuaded her to hope in living? The effect on her? Their study, examination of cases, the contact with Okisawa and the bonds with him? his showing the test results, helping Pam, visiting the house (and the police and neighbours' curiosity?), his continued advice?
11 Pam’s desperation and the suicide attempt, Andy's offering himself and her reaction?
12. The phone call to Dr. Welman, the decision to go to San Francisco, hitchhiking, the visit? his being on the phone, not wanting to be involved, his explaining his responsibilities and his status as a scientist, playing darts, courtesy? his saying that he was cornered, the treatment and Andy's involvement in it, the tests, the 'flu? The final results and some remission for Pam?
13. The happy finale with the two in the San Francisco street, getting a job, the hope for some kind of future, the joy at the end, she lives?
14. How well did the film communicate the reality of terminal illness, medical help and its limitations, the need for support and strength, the psychological repercussions on the person dying, on the person helping? Themes of hope?
